[cyberlimerence]

Realistically all the European mini-clouds like OVH, Scaleway, Hetzner, etc should collaborate and field some pan-European offering, similar to the American/Chinese mega clouds. And EU Commission, or whatever, should invest in the name of strategic competition.

[mathverse]

Lol. They are not paneuropean companies. All of them have different nationalities and priorities. Europeans cant work together on mega projects due to their strong nationalism.

[stakhanov]

> [...] due to their strong nationalism.

The problem IMO is politics, not nationalism (which only enters into the politics indirectly). European integration is a half-done project. Political forces that want to finish the job get cancelled out by political forces that want to undo the progress we've already made with the net effect of nothing getting done in any direction, maintaining a status-quo that pretty much nobody wants, and nobody (nationalist or otherwise) ever wanted. And that status quo is that doing business in a pan-european way is a bureaucratic hellscape.

[lifestyleguru]

You can go against the current and not be nationalist within EU, "capital has no nationality" and stuff, but then French and German capital will maul you then Dutch, Swedish, Italian, and Spanish capitals will take the rest. What will remain out of it, will have no nationality.

[cyberlimerence]

I never said it would be easy, but if they really want it, it should be possible. Airbus, for example, is a pan-European entity, build up of French, German and Spanish companies which preceded it.

[FirmwareBurner]

Making planes and jet engines is way different than making software, that it's not even comparable.

One is highly bureaucratic, highly regulated, credentialed with at least a M.Sc. required, top down management tied to politics, defense and academia and super slow moving needing a strong manufacturing base, while the other is fast moving, less rules based, flat hierarchy, no credential/degree required, and not tied to government policies, academia or manufacturing.

Basically, one is "safety and national security first" the other is "move fast and break things and we'll worry about the rules we broke after we have a successful product". If your comparison were true then Europe would have nailed SW too not just planes. But they didn't.

There's also the culture of failure around entrepreneurship where in the US that's considered a right of passage to try and fail at your own business, while in Europe it's shameful and can financially wreck you for life if your small company goes bankrupt.

Then there's the WLB differences. By the time European companies get unblocked from some project manager's 2 month vacation and then from the tech lead's 5 month sick leave, the competing Americans have already launched 5 different software products and pivoted the company 3 times and found a market they can capture. Long blocks in the dev process when nobody answers emails for months because of vacations and sick lave can work in Aerospace industry where Airbus has a monopoly, or other such niche industries where EU "mittlesand" companies are the only players you can buy from, but doesn't work in creating SW companies that need to be fast to market otherwise someone else eats your lunch due to an even playing field and lack of regulations that act like a moat.

Basically, you can't win a race against unscrupulous opponents who disregard regulations and prioritizes financial success at all costs when you prioritize WLB and following regulations. Straight up. The playing field is completely unbalanced here in favor of the US and China. That's why rich Europeans put their money in US SW companies instead of EU ones.